communiques-from-the-cornfield

[communiques-from-the-cornfield]

Borzoi blesses your cornfield.

Thank you for your blessing Borzoi.

Perhaps the field will speak to me once again.

Maybe this is the sign we were waiting for.

[communiques-from-the-cornfield]

I know my post is late today...or I guess early.

Can you belive I was staring at the box? I had work to do, chores, responsibilities.

Instead I stared at that damn box all day.

Rectangular matte black plastic, larger than my hand, but not by much. It taunted me. If it were as heavy as its weight on my mind it would have broken the table. Instead--when I finally picked it up--it was feather light. Something clattered against the inner edges, a box within a box perhaps?

A woman possessed, I ripped open the plastic lid. It creaked, but didn't break. A cackle erupted from my throat, hysterical. Had it been decades prior, they would have deemed me mad for such an outburst.

Inside was a battered VHS of Goncharov (1973). The sticker was beginning to peel, but I'd know that title font anywhere. My college film courses were finally paying off.

But why, oh why, would the shape by the field leave me a movie?

Baffled, adrenaline weak, I dropped it back on the table. It sits there, mocking me. Should I even play it? Perhaps there is a message or code? Or maybe, all of this is just someone fucking with me.

What do you think, readers? I have to play it, right? I can't NOT know.

[communiques-from-the-cornfield]

Just after sunset, I heard a noise.

It was like the crunching of snow, but softer somehow. The lightest of footsteps cracking through the very top layer of ice. A squirrel, I thought, or a rabbit. Something small and fleet footed.

Sounds like this are normal in the sticks, but I felt my fingers creeping toward the curtain anyway. Gently, I pulled the pleated fabric aside, letting a thin sliver of light peak through.

A shape.

Something larger than a rabbit--much larger-- seemingly bending at the waist at the edge of the field. At the flicker of light, it stood; silent and imposing.

I froze, shaking finger clenching the curtain

It froze, eyes bright and beady like fireflies.

I don't remember blinking-- I don't remember taking my eyes off of it or moving--but I came to standing at the field's edge. Alone and frigid, shoeless feet going numb against the cold ground as fingers that once grasped the drapes clutched a smooth box to my chest.

The box sits on my kitchen table now, unopened.

[communiques-from-the-cornfield]

The field is dormant now, covered in a fine layer of snow.

I wonder if the dusting is hiding another message, I didnt see any footprints in the snow besides my own. Would the messenger leave prints? Can they be heard if it is quiet enough?

Sometimes the field goes quiet, unnaturally so; when that happens, the space behind my house feels like a void.

I don't go out when that happens.

What would happen if I did? Should I?

What do you think?

[communiques-from-the-cornfield]

Today, there was no message. Maybe the field had nothing to say.

Instead, I'll provide some background on The Cornfield, since you haven't known it all your life.

This Cornfield is like any other cornfield in a lot of ways. It goes dormant in the winter and gets tilled for planting in the spring. It grows in the summer --always knee high by the Fourth of July--to be shucked and consumed. In the fall, the stalks brown and wither before being formed into a maze.

I've never made it to the center, I'm not sure anyone has.

I wonder what I would find if I did.

Maybe the farmer, since no one has ever seen them.

Its as if the field cares for itself. It grows, it changes, it prepares for the different seasons, but even I've never seen the one caring for it.

There's a house across the field; but no one ever enters or leaves. There isn't a car in the driveway and although lights go on and off, there are no shadows in the windows.

I suppose I should have found this weird, growing up...but it's just the way The Cornfield was. Questioning it was like questioning why the sun rose or the moon changed. I must have asked once--when I was young and questioning everything--but I don't remember the answer.

Maybe there wasn't one.

[communiques-from-the-cornfield]

I found a message on the edge of the cornfield last night.

Scratched into the dirt:

"Watch your step."

Literally? Figuratively? Was it a threat?

I dragged my boot through the words, scraping the soil clean.

It's probably a coincidence that I missed a step on the way out this morning, spilling my coffee across the half frozen driveway.

But maybe not.

There's still dirt on my boots.